Government Gag Exposed

The National
Security Letter (NSL) section of the USA Patriot Act contains a gag provision
that prohibits anyone who receives an NSL from "disclos[ing] to any person
that the [FBI] has sought or obtained access to information or records."

The
gag provision continues to prevent the ACLU from disclosing to the public
a vast amount of innocuous, non-sensitive information about our constitutional
challenge to the NSL power. For example, the government has demanded that
the ACLU redact a sentence that described its anonymous client's business
as "provid[ing] clients
with the ability to access the Internet." The government even insisted that
the ACLU black out a direct quote from a Supreme Court case in our brief.

Make a Difference

Your support helps the ACLU stand up for human rights and defend civil liberties.

The ACLU continues to contest the
government's redactions in the case. The documents below highlight speech
that the government suppressed in the case, but the Court later allowed
us to disclose. Here is what the government didn't want you to see.